


As You Wish

by LyraNgalia



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, Implied Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-20 10:30:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 8,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles and ficlets written in responses to prompts. Drabbles that are part of a continuity will be marked as such, and be from various fandoms with various pairings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Trust (The Dresden Files - Thomas/Elaine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [BlueKiwi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueKiwi), who asked for Thomas/Elaine with the prompt "Trust"

“Do you really think I’m _that_ stupid?” Thomas asked, shouting to be heard over the roar of the waves in San Francisco Bay. The Golden Gate Bridge beneath them swayed sickeningly as the wind whipped up. “Wait, don’t answer that.”

Elaine rolled her eyes, her grip on the bridge’s railing white knuckled as she watched the barely visible form of the sylph whip the air above the whirlpool into a funnel, her furious shrieks a high pitch counterpoint to the scream of the wind. “You thought hitting on a sylph with enough raw power to flatten Northern California was a good idea! Pretty sure that _proves_ you’re that stupid!” she shouted back. She felt her feet slip, sliding across the wet ground, as the wind picked up even more force.

Thomas’ hand reached out and gripped her wrist. His touch was cold and vise-like and utterly unwelcome, but it did keep her from slipping farther off the bridge. A mote of silver shone in his eyes as he nodded towards the bay, where the storm sylph’s funnel was fast turning into a waterspout. “Trust me! Who else is going to be able to put out Harry’s fire if not that?”


	2. Puppies (Sherlock - Sherlock/Irene)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also for [BlueKiwi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueKiwi), who asked for Sherlock/Irene with the prompt "puppies". Never let it be said that I follow prompts well.

The potions classroom would normally be, on a sunny spring Saturday afternoon, empty, but then Irene had known it wouldn’t be, which was why she was here in the first place. While the rest of the students were out screaming their heads off at the Slytherin/Gryffindor Quidditch match, there was one student sitting in the potions classroom, surrounded by bubbling cauldrons.

“I’m busy,” Sherlock Holmes said without looking up from a small brass cauldron full of a liquid that gave off a sickly green glow.

Irene ignored the dismissive tone, as she always did, and wove her way past the tables and the cauldrons, careful to keep her robes very far away from a hissing red one that smelled of baked beans. She set a purple sprig of monkshood on the table in front of him, its stem still damp from its recent picking. Her smile was sharp, knowing, expectant.

“Remus Lupin. Your deductions?”


	3. Sebastian's Day Out - (Sherlock - Irene/Sebastian)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for [tuulikki](http://tuulikki.tumblr.com/) over at Tumblr. No prompt, unless you call the idea "he snipes at her ass with an Airsoft and she leaves him tied up in awkward places" a prompt.

Irene Adler stood outside the Houses of Parliament, a cool blood-red smile on her lips. To the casual observer, she seemed like one of the many tourists milling about, though the more observant watcher would notice that her phone was rarely aimed at the iconic roofline of the building, that her gaze followed members of Parliament as they walked out, that every so often a man or woman would meet her gaze, nearly jump, and stare down at the ground, scurrying away like rabbits.  
  


Their reactions made her laugh on the inside, and it was for that precise reason that she’d come. At least one of her clients in the Houses had been irritating of late, and a little reminder of just what she could do with a single word, a single photograph, was precisely what they needed. Not that she’d put it quite so precisely in as many words, but planting the idea was enough.

  
So when something unexpected stung at her backside, Irene turned in irritation to look for an offensive tourist. But the sting came again, this time accompanied by the sound of a skittering plastic pellet on the concrete near her feet, and Irene turned her attention upward, scanning the skyline, the rooftops nearby, looking for a telltale glint. A third shot, this time high along her hip, accompanied by the wink of sunlight against glass, about six stories up, half a block away. She smirked, and reached for her phone.

**  
Slipped your leash for the day?**

Her answer was another well-aimed shot at her backside, the plastic pellet pinging off the concrete after it found its mark. And a corresponding text.

**Looking to play.**

She eyed the sixth story window where the shots are coming from, and gauged his line-of-sight accordingly. Her smile deepened, knowing he would see it through the sniper’s scope (assuming he wasn’t using it on other parts of her), and stepped into the path of an eager group of tourists. The tourists flowed around her, a stream around an obstruction, and their movements obscured his sightline, and Irene sent one more text: a location and a time. Without waiting for any parting shots (or texts), she signaled her driver and slipped into the waiting car.

*****

The line for the London Eye was long as usual, even more crowded with boisterous tourists than Parliament had been, all of them exclaiming their delight in a cacaphony of English, Mandarin Chinese, French, Japanese, German, and a few other languages Irene couldn’t pinpoint immediately. She sat in the observation capsule alone, a sleek leather valise at her feet. It took little more than a pointed look to keep the eager tourists from entering, and her phone sat silent in her pocket. Another minute and the capsule would be off ground level.

Fifty seconds.

Forty.

Thirty.

Twenty.

Fifteen.

Ten.

A thud sounded against the floor of the capsule seven seconds before the door shut and a lean, familiar man straightened himself, leaning against the curved window. He glared at her from behind expensive sunglasses.

“You had them boot my car.”

She smiled, sinful and unrepentant. “I’m hard to get, Sebastian,” she answered as she crossed her legs. The toe of one Louboutin heel caught the edge of the leather valise and sent it sliding towards his foot. “And you said you wanted to play.”

He grinned.

*****

Irene laughed, low and wicked, as he pulled against the rope bonds lashing his wrists and ankles to the rails of the capsule. The Eye was more than three quarters through its rotation, and the ground (and the accompanying audience of waiting tourists) was approaching with sure, plodding certainty. “You’re a _bitch_ , you know that?” he growled, making a valiant attempt at sounding threatening despite the fact that his trousers were undone and past his hips, that his voice was strained and breathless, and the arousal causing said strained breathlessness was still painfully evident and on display in the rare sunny London afternoon.

“Seven minutes until the tourists start walking in,” Irene answered, long slim fingers sliding slowly along his erection. A cool kiss to the cheek and a light, lingering touch, and she was on the other side of the capsule, the valise in one hand, the other hooking a length of rope to a ceiling spanning beam. She’d disabled the alarm on the capsule door, of course, and the door came open with only a quiet groan of protest.

The breeze carried with it the scent of the Thames, and Irene stepped up to the edge of the pod, throwing the rope out the door and slipping on a glove from the depths of the valise. “Four until they get a full view,” she continued. She gave Sebastian a look over her shoulder and blew him a kiss.

“Better get started.” Her hand tight on the rope, she stepped out of the pod, leaving behind nothing but the breeze and a laugh.


	4. The Phone Box - (Sherlock - Irene/Sebastian)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in the same continuity as [Sebastian's Day Out](http://archiveofourown.org/works/584420/chapters/1049895). Also for [tuulikki](http://tuulikki.tumblr.com/).

A few old phone boxes remained scattered around the city, mostly in tourist-heavy areas, and that had been one of the main reasons Irene had chosen this particular intersection and its red telephone booth. A fact that was now becoming abundantly clear to Sebastian when he realized she hadn’t, in fact, brought the key to the handcuffs that were connecting him to the phone in the phone box.  
  
The phone that Irene was currently dialing, his trousers tossed over her shoulder.  
  
“I know you keep tabs on your pets, Jim, so let’s not pretend you have no idea where I’m calling from,” she all but purred into the pay phone. “I’ve left you a present.”  
  
Sebastian twisted his wrist, trying to reach one cuff with the other hand, but found himself just a few centimeters too far to get purchase on trying to yank the metal links apart. “I should have  _known_ after the Eye,” he said darkly, glaring at her in the transient glow of traffic lights.  
  
“You should have, dear,” she agreed, setting the phone back in its hook. Her fingernails raked four parallel paths along his inner thigh before she took a step back and out of the phone booth. “Next time I’ll take your pants too.”  
  
He shuddered at the sharp path of her nails and the sudden cool air of the outside as he found himself alone and once again inconveniently and publicly bound. “ _Bitch_.”


	5. Death in Print - (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for [francesca-wayland](http://francesca-wayland.tumblr.com/) over at Tumblr, for the prompt "Irene finding out about Sherlock's 'death'".

Sherlock Holmes' star had been highest and brightest in London, and when that star fell, the news had spread like wildfire through the rest of England. The Continent, on the other hand, had been less captivated by the consulting detective, less enamoured of his skill. Which was why instead of front page news, the suicide of one Sherlock Holmes, Fake Genius had been tucked away in the back pages of _Le Monde,_ as little more than a blurb on the French paper's website days after the fact.

 

The late Irene Adler had been in Paris for a week before a chance encounter with a newspaper during her morning café brought her the news. Her hand had shaken, making the spoon clatter against the porcelain cup, as she'd stirred cream and sugar into her coffee and read the short article. Her eyes had swept over the article. Once. Twice. Three times, before she'd read every word, and every hint between the words.

 

But she remained in the café, calmly drinking her coffee, exchanging a few words with the proprietor who had grown used to seeing _la m_ _ademoiselle_ taking her coffee and her croissant in the mornings. She brushed the crumbs off her fingers, blotted a drop of coffee from the corner of her mouth, and paid, leaving as she always did, her departure announced by the quaint silver bells attached to the café's door. The late Irene Adler walked down the cobblestone street, her footsteps brisk despite the lack of high heels, and she made unerringly for a hunched over gentleman, his hair mottled grey underneath a cap. She'd seen him before, panhandling outside her hotel the past few days. A smile tugs at her lips as she approached, and dropped a twenty euro note into the chipped mug he had set in front of him.

 

It was obvious now, before she had dismissed it as imagination, as sentiment and nostalgia colouring her perceptions, suggesting that the glimpse of a jaw line was similarity, that a sweep of unshaven cheekbone was anything but a coincidence. But the world proclaimed him dead, so now she knew.

 

She stopped, and waited for the man to acknowledge the gift, to look up. And when he did, she smiled.

 

“Finally hungry?”


	6. Talking Business - (Sherlock - Irene/Jim)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for [blue-crow](http://blue-crow.tumblr.com/), with the prompt "Jim and Irene, professional scolding".

The voice on the other end of the line was familiar, even if the number it came from wasn’t. Irene wasn’t surprised by the latter fact, untraceability was a matter of criminal course, after all. She smiled, though, at the call. “Again, dear?” she asked, her nails clicking a staccato rhythm against the arm of her chair.  
  
A slow, anticipatory smile plays on her lips at the response, and Irene’s voice is sharp when she answers.  
  
“No, no, no. If you want to play again, you’re going to pay in something far more interesting than money, Jim. You’re paying in secrets.”


	7. A Model of Decorum and Tranquility - (Sherlock - Irene/Jim)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for [BlueKiwi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueKiwi) with the prompt Irene/Jim - Chess.

Information had to be exchanged, and messages delivered, and while much of it could be done through text, there were a few things that still needed a human touch. Which, for Irene, meant Kate.  
  
So when Kate returned from bringing a message to Jim Moriarty at 51 Buckingham Gate with a bruise at her wrist and lipstick smudged, Irene was less than thrilled. And when the next need to exchange physical proof came, she insisted on one of Jim’s people. It was a sensitive bit of information, something he wouldn’t trust to a simple lackey.   
  
She suspected he would send the sniper.  
  
Which was why, half an hour before the meeting was due found Irene Adler waiting for Moriarty’s sniper with a flogger across her knee.


	8. The Very Last Night (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the remarkable [team-science](http://team-science.tumblr.com/), my partner in writing crime, for the prompt "What, precisely, was the meaning of the look Irene Adler gave Sherlock as she watched him leave 221B to go to the airport?"

_Too late..._

The government man walked out, and Sherlock Holmes with him, leaving Irene Adler in 221B Baker Street. Irene stepped over to the window and pulled aside the lace drape to watch them go. She told herself that it was simply to ensure that her guess had been correct, that they were leaving for Heathrow, but that did not keep her from feeling regret.

Heathrow would, with absolute certainty, reveal just how extensive the game she'd played against Sherlock Holmes. And while she was certain she would get exactly what she wanted, exactly what she _needed_ in exchange for the contents of the cameraphone, she also recognized that at Heathrow she would no longer be just the woman who'd outwitted and beaten the consulting detective at her house in Belgravia, but the woman who had predicted, manipulated, and played the consulting detective like a violin. That he was just like the rest.

The warmth of his fingers against her wrist lingered, and Irene shook her head, letting go of the drapes and turning away from the window. It was a necessity and she did not regret the choice she'd made to play this particular game with the information in her possession, but she would miss the knowledge that there was someone like her in the world, someone remarkable and damaged and brilliant. No, in a few hours, he would realize that he was just like everyone else.

And the world would be a remarkably lonelier place for the knowledge.


	9. Calculated Misdirection (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for [compos-dementis](http://compos-dementis.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr, who wanted "Sherlock doesn’t know how to be physically affectionate. Irene teaches him. She is not as power-hungry as she seems." I'm not sure if I managed the prompt quite as stated, but I hope you enjoy it.

“Your hand lingers on theirs when you pick their pockets,” he observed, his voice low as they drifted with the pedestrian traffic away from the mark, the investment banker whose pockets were now missing the keys to an expensive sports car. “It's inefficient, dangerous. It's a tell.”

Irene laughed, low and quiet, as she took a right, leading him towards the parking garage where the sports car was parked. “The results would beg to differ,” she answered, dangling the key from her finger. “You should know better than anyone.”

His brow furrowed. “I don't understand.”

She stopped walking and turned to face him. He stumbled at the sudden change in pace, and a flicker of annoyance crossed his face. The look faded to uncertainty as she searched his expression. “You really don't,” she murmured, with a mixture of disbelief and amusement.

Another flicker of annoyance, and a growing scowl. “Of course not, otherwise I wouldn't have said so.”

She took his hand then, her thumb running lightly over his knuckles, feeling the scars, old and new, that had accumulated there beneath the pad of her finger. “Physical affection, Mr. Holmes,” she answered, “or at least the illusion of it.” She took another step into his personal space and was rewarded by a minute tension in his hand beneath her fingertips, of nearly undetectable dilation in his pupils. Small things, tiny betrayals of chemistry, that she would not have looked for in anyone else, would not have _needed_ to look for in anyone else.

Her fingers lingered along the back of his hand, slowly tracing along his wrist until her fingers rested against the pulsepoint in his wrist. She saw the look of recognition dawn in his eyes, and she nodded. “The illusion of physical affection, provoking chemical response.”

“Calculated misdirection,” he finished for her, his fingers closing around her wrist in return. His pulse was elevated beneath her fingertips, as Irene was certain hers is beneath his. “You never linger when we touch.”

She smiled and withdrew her hand from his, stepping back out of his space, continuing along towards the parking structure. “It isn't an illusion to provoke misdirection when we do.”


	10. Poppy and Belladonna (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [jameskirkvevo](http://jameskirkvevo.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr, who asked for Greek Mythology AU Adlock.

The stories lied.

 

Hades didn't see her in a field, didn't run her down in his chariot and whisk her away to the Underworld. He saw her in a field, yes, walking through the hemlock grove with belladonna woven in her dark hair, but it was she who followed. She who saw the chariot of Stygian iron rumble past, leaving the bitter bite of death in his wake, she who followed and looked into the gaping maw into Hades, saw the fallow earth and the dark abyss beyond, and walked in without hesitation, a pale slip of a thing, clothed in gossamer and lily pale, with empty hands and belladonna in her hair.

Persephone walked into the Underworld, past Cerebus without a tremble, and the Fields of Asphodel parted for her with a sigh. The Elysian Fields greeted her like its mistress and the gates of Hades opened at her raised hand. Persephone walked into the coldness of Hades and smiled at the Lord of the Dead on his iron throne, her lips red as poppies. She did not bow before him, was not afraid, walked through the halls with empty hands and clothed in gossamer and lily pale and smiled at him with lips red as poppies.

She smiled at him and turned away, leaving Hades, leaving the Elysian Fields and the Fields of Asphodel. Cerebus whimpered as she strolled away, but she walked on, a smile on her lips and Stygian iron clinging to her pale feet, as if the Underworld itself wished her stay. She walked away, and knew he would follow.

For Persephone walked into Hades' palace with empty hands and belladonna in her hair and smiled with lips red as poppies, and Hades was caught.


	11. Domestics (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [notquiteasociopath](http://notquiteasociopath.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr, and the prompt “Domestics."

It was three in the morning, and John Watson was about to murder his flatmate. A now-familiar pair of voices argued insistently, their voices drifting up from the room below.

 

“Just admit it, you were _wrong_ about the barber.”  
“I was _not_ , the clues were _there_. He was at the scene, him and his three cigarette habit.”  
“He was there a day _before_ , that's not 'at the scene'. And your deduction about the maid doesn't count. Her limp was obvious.”  
  
  
It was regular as clockwork, that when the not-so-late Irene Adler came to call, she and Sherlock would unfailingly end up in what Mrs. Hudson referred to as a “domestic,” and what John privately referred to as the most irritating row possible between two people determined to one-up each other. Normally, they had the courtesy of restricting their arguing to daylight hours, but tonight, no, _this morning_ , they had begun early, and neither seemed likely to tire.

   
“Obvious? _Hardly_ , you missed the fact that she'd slept with the sister.”

   
John growled in sleep-deprived frustration and threw the pillow off the bed, swinging his legs off the bed and padding towards the door. Unfortunately, there was only so much storming down the stairs one could do while in bare feet. While it alleviated his irritation (honestly, he was grateful that Sherlock was branching out in the 'human interaction' column, but, times like this, John missed the late night violin), it did little to announce his presence.

So when John threw open the door to the sitting room, and found Irene with her bare legs wrapped around Sherlock's waist, and Sherlock's shirt flung haphazardly over the skull and the mantleplace, to say that he was a little surprised would have been an understatement.

  
“I didn't _miss_ it. It wasn't _relevant_.”

  
Only now, without the intervening walls, did John hear the breathless quality in both their voices, and the dull thud of the bookcase as Sherlock nearly lurched towards it, one hand gripping Irene's hip, pulling her close, the other reaching over to brace himself against the wood. As her back hit the wooden bookcase, Irene purred, shifting her hips and eliciting a groan from Sherlock. John swallowed, stared, and backed away hurriedly before either noticed.

He _definitely_ missed the late night violin playing.


	12. Aperitif (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for [imaginehowistouchthe-cassbutt](http://imaginehowistouchthe-cassbutt.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, with the prompt "Something to do with cooking".

Sunlight spilling into the room through the half-drawn curtains woke Irene, and she stretched sinuously amid the tangled sheets. She didn't have to open her eyes to know the other side of the bed was empty, didn't have to call out to know that the man in question was no longer in the room. She smiled and breathed deep before disentangling herself from among the bedclothes. The worn wood of the floor was silk beneath her feet, and the rare London sun was warm on her bare skin. She took the blue silk robe from its hanger and slipped it on, smiling to herself at the pointed lightness of it, no phone in its pockets, nothing at all in its pockets, not even a stray nicotine patch. As if he was making a point to leave nothing for her to read, nothing for her to _deduce_.

She smiled, and belted the robe around her waist, slipping out of the bedroom and into the rest of the flat. John Watson was still out, or out again. Difficult to say until she saw the hall. The pair of shoes left in the flat. Still out then, his evening had gone well and no doubt he was with some dull but inoffensively attractive woman. Irene laughed quietly, heading straight for the kitchen, where she had heard a single clink, glass against metal. The island was, as usual, covered in glassware with an Erlenmeyer flask rested suspended over an inactive Bunsen burner, and one Sherlock Holmes stood fiddling over at the counter, his back to her, the red furrows of her nails still vivid against his back.

“No good morning?” she asked, arch amusement in her voice as she leaned against the threshold, the morning light coming through the window picking out glints of honey in her dark brown hair. “And not finished experimenting despite your thoroughness last night.”

As she spoke, the kettle at Sherlock's elbow clicked off, sending puffs of steam into the air. Only then did he turn, rolling his eyes despite the smirk on his lips, and gestured to the cabinet to her left. “It's obvious the morning is good,” he answered in kind. “Unless you want to argue the point rather than getting the tea off the shelf?”


	13. The Exchange (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for [waitingforatimemachine](http://waitingforatimemachine.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, who requested the prompt "Irene and Sherlock exchange christmas presents at 221b."

Between the efforts of Mary and Mrs. Hudson, Christmas saw 221B Baker Street far more festively decorated than the man who lived there would have allowed it to be. But the decorations were simply that, decorations, and the man who still lived at 221B moved through them within his own bubble of awareness, his sights and his attentions focused on blood congealed in dead fingers and bruise lividity rather than tinsel and faerie lights.

That was, until a familiar sigh sounded from his phone. A familiar sigh that he had expected to never hear again, whose bearer would never have risked the charade of her death to simply tease him. He reached for his phone with what he would consider brisk efficiency and not at all concern, and tabbed to the message.

_Your roof._

He looked up, though there was nothing to see there but ceiling, recently dusted, with multicoloured shadows thrown off by faerie lights. Useless, really, but it did not stop him from pulling on his coat, his scarf, and heading up to the roof.

He was not certain what he’d find when he got there. The Woman, obviously, whether poised and cold as she always was, or harried and scared the only way he could imagine her acting so rashly. What he did not expect was what he found, which was absolutely nothing. Nothing, except a small box on the roof, wrapped in bright green paper, and a pair of footprints, stilettos, in the snow leading away from said box and onto the fire escape. The Woman herself was nowhere to be found.

He frowned, considered texting her back, but to do so would have been to admit he did not understand her game, and his pride would never allow it. So instead he opened the box, standing on the roof as the snow drifted, wet fat flakes, onto his head, collected in his curls and on his shoulders.

Inside the box was nothing, only a scrap of cream coloured parchment. A watermark told him it was from a Bohemian papermaker, but there were only two words on the scrap, written in her sharp flowing hand.

_Try again_.

He frowned, shook the snow out of his hair, and headed back down into the flat, his irritation at the Woman and her tricks growing. It took him three seconds in his flat to recognize that something was different. That the air was cooler than it had been, that the scent of sandalwood and vanilla mingled with the scent of snow and absurd pine potpourri Mrs. Hudson had left behind.

Sherlock spun around slowly, considering what had been moved, and noticed immediately what had been changed. The side table next to his violin stand, its drawer opened half an inch. He crossed the room swiftly, knowing almost before he got there what he would find, or more likely, what he would _not_ find.

She did not disappoint him. The drawer that had held her mobile phone, stripped of its secrets but not its sentimental value, was nowhere to be found within its depths. In its place was a folded slip of paper. Sherlock picked it up, expecting another cryptic, triumphant note, and instead found himself smiling at the promise it held.

A single round trip plane ticket to Port-au-Prince.

A challenge, and a promise. He reached for his own mobile, and sent off a response.

_Happy Christmas, Miss Adler._

He sent the text, silent, into the ether, and deleted both it and her previous text. Port-au-Prince it would be.


	14. Mysteries in Manhattan (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From an anonymous commenter on Tumblr came the request: "While "dead" Sherlock decides to see how Irene is doing since he last saw her. He tries to keep his visit unnoticed but fails."

A month after the quiet death of one well-known dominatrix Irene Adler, a woman named Angelica Norton took up residence in a Park Avenue apartment in Manhattan. The new paint in said apartment had not yet fully dried before word spread among the wealthy elite of the Norton Woman’s talents, of her skills in arranging for what her clients liked, no matter how unlikely the desire; the Norton Woman was known to be able to arrange for it, and in a manner so discreet that her clients could hardly believe it.

A month after _that_ , it became apparent to those who engaged her services that Angelica Norton’s discretion extended to secrets, that not only could she arrange for their desires with the utmost discretion, that she could quietly make any potential embarrassment disappear when her clients were not as discreet as they should have been.

And three months after the well-publicised death of one well-known genius Sherlock Holmes, a man appeared in New York City, asking questions. The man was stooped, with dirty blond hair and a smoker’s voice, harsh and gravelly. His questions were pointed, and despite the wealthy’s attempts to ignore him, to have him removed as it did all the other vagrants that lived within New York, his questions were often too pointed to ignore. It was not long before his questions led him to an apartment on Park Avenue, an apartment that he approached with absolutely no intention of ringing up to until the doorman saw him, took his arm, and wordlessly marched him up o the residence of one Miss Angelica Norton.

Her residence was sumptuous, wealth obvious in the wallpaper, the furniture. And the woman within said residence too was wealth personified, wealth in the cold sharpness of diamonds. She was ice blonde, her pale blue eyes penetrating in a pale face, with barely a hint of colour on her lips. She wore her hair in a tight chignon, and her crisp dove-grey suit was designer, tailored.

The only thing that was even remotely familiar were her heels. Tall, imposing Louboutins, encasing slim legs in black leather and a splash of red. Miss Angelica Norton nodded, gave the doorman a nod, and sent him out, waving away his concern. When the door clicked shut, she smiled, her eyes sweeping over him, stripping away his disguise with one look, discarding the dirty blond hair, the hunching walk, the dirty fingernails. She tsked, and reached over, brushing a speck of cigarette ash from his sleeve.

"You didn’t really expect that you could find me without the recognition being mutual, did you, Mr. Holmes?"


	15. Coffeeshops (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an anonymous Tumblr commentor, who requested the prompt "Sherlock and Irene fooling around in a semi-public place, with him getting annoyed but secretly really turned on and she knows it."

The cafe’s business was beginning to pick up as the post-theatre crowd began to drift in. Men and women, mostly professional, upper-middle class, stopping by for a hot restorative drink or to wait out the initial clot of traffic that came with the crowd’s exit. Irene settled back in her overstuffed chair, her fingers curled around her mug, her nails bright against the white porcelain.

"The man at the front of the line, ordering an Americano," she murmured over the lip of her drink as she blew the surface of the latte to cool it. "Hates the theatre, goes because of his wife. He flirts with the same barista every time they’re here, orders an Americano when he’d rather have something sweet and full of cream, because he thinks it will impress her."

Sherlock gave her an irritated look. Their positions meant she had full view of the incoming crowd with ease, while he would have to turn around to see if her deductions were true. He glanced up, at the imperfect reflection of the crowd in the window, and she sipped her drink, pleased, at the way his brow furrowed, as he tried to find the tells that she had read off the man in the wavering reflection.

"The barista’s not interested," she continued, smug, as she stretched out, running the toe of her leather pump along the inside of his leg, resting her foot on his knee, as she savored the taste of coffee and milk. "She’s a theatre student, more interested in the man with the goatee three customers behind our Americano drinker. Hopes that if she catches his attention, he’ll be interested in seeing her play. It’s half-written, of course, and dreadfully derivative. But what can you expect from someone who spent the entirety of their university days experimenting with substance abuse and sexuality?"

He looked annoyed, sipped his tea, and Irene’s smile deepened as she felt the warm touch of his left hand against her ankle, tracing along the edge of her stiletto pump. “Only the sexuality,” he contradicted, though there was a distinct huskiness in his voice when he spoke, his fingers still lingering along her foot. “She’s far too afraid for experimenting with substances. Keeps her from taking risks in the writing too.”

Irene laughed, and settled back. This was a game they could play for _hours_.


	16. A Study in Observation (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anon on Tumblr who requested "Sherlock ogles Irene. Not studies, not scrutinizes - he decides to indulge himself and just ogle. (and the only person who realizes he's doing it/catches him is John). Doesn't have to be set during ASiB."

Initially, he watched her because he told himself that she could not be trusted. Because he was Sherlock Holmes and she was Irene Adler and the games they played meant that she would take any sign of his inattention as an opportunity to best him. But it eventually became clear that she was using his attention to her advantage. That his attention on her meant that his attention was not elsewhere, and that hers _was_. And he hated losing.

Later, he told himself he watched her because he wanted to study her, that he deduced so little from her, that she hid herself so well, that he must study her to understand her. It became immediately clear though, that no amount of detailed study would entirely solve her for him. She was a constant mystery, even as he began to understand how she operated and what she _liked_ , who she _was_ was still a puzzle, and no amount of study, of watching her, would solve that.

It was, after all, what _he_ liked. The mystery waiting to be solved.

He came up with excuse after excuse. He was, after all, a brilliant mind, and could spin reasons as easily as he pulled deductions from the glance of a man’s cap. But eventually, Sherlock Holmes admitted he watched her simply because he wanted to. Because she was lovely and fascinating, and the way her hair curled as it fell down her back was a sight he could lose himself in. He enjoyed watching the way the light played off his silk dressing gown belted around her bare waist, and the way she swept through 221B Baker Street like a hurricane of self-assurance, razor sharp intellect, and precise sexuality.

"You’re drooling."

John Watson’s voice, pitched low, broke through Sherlock’s indulgence, and Sherlock jerked back in surprise, blinked, and turned to him. “What?”

John gave him a knowing look, and set his tea down, nodding at Irene, who had declared John’s tea dismal and was now making her own pot. “You’re,” he said, enunciating. “Drooling. Staring at her.”

Sherlock’s jaw worked, the denials leaping fast and furious to the tip of his tongue. “I was not,” he eventually said. “I was considering the case with the dead musician.”

"No you weren’t," Irene interjected without turning around. Even without seeing her face, her pleasure was obvious in her words. "You’ve known it was the third backup singer ever since you saw the crime scene photos. You were ogling."

John choked back a laugh, hiding the gesture behind his tea, and simply went back to his newspaper.


	17. Games (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

The first lesson John had learned upon moving into Baker Street ages ago was that one had to expect very odd things living with Sherlock Holmes. Body parts in various stages of experimentation in odd places in the kitchen for one. The chronic lack of milk, for another. The fact that even after one had seen the body, there was still a non-zero chance that one’s dead best friend would come waltzing back into one’s life two years later.

That one, admittedly, had been unexpected even for Sherlock Holmes.

But it also made it far easier to swallow when the dead rose again in the form of the late Irene Adler, waltzing into Baker Street a year after Sherlock’s return. Since then, her presence in 221B had become an irregular regularity. John was no longer surprised when she showed up, usually utilizing a form of entry that was decidedly not the front door (despite how many times he observed loudly that the front door was in fact in perfect working order even though Sherlock had shot the doorbell again). Nor was he surprised when she disappeared again, and Sherlock’s only response to John’s questions of where she’d gone a blasé shrug.

She came and went at her own whims, and John merely sighed, and left her and Sherlock to it.

Which was precisely what he had been doing on a rare peaceful Saturday morning, making himself a bit of toast, when he heard two pairs of feet pad out of Sherlock’s bedroom.

"The usual rules, Mr. Holmes, or are you sick of losing yet?" There was absolutely no mistaking Irene’s voice, low and smoky and arch. John had no doubt she used that tone with Sherlock purely to provoke him.

"Trying to manipulate me into easing the rules for you, Woman?" came Sherlock’s immediate response, stiff and almost offended. John rolled his eyes. "You know that will never happen."

The television came on to the sound of a trash telly talk show host, and the context for their cryptic conversation slammed into place in John’s mind like puzzle pieces, and he barely managed to set his mug down before he rushed into the sitting room, where Irene and Sherlock had taken seats across from each other, equidistant from the television, their attention focused utterly on each other as the talk show host on the television began announcing his guests.

"Third drink of the morning," Irene said immediately, not even glancing at the television. "Don’t bother denying it, you can hear it in his R’s."

Sherlock glared at her, and shrugged out of his blazer, ignoring John’s rush into the sitting room. “Irish Whiskey. It’s a Thursda—”

“ _ **NO,**_ " John interrupted, his voice firm as he stepped in front of the television. "No. I told you, you’re not playing this game again, not while I’m around."

His protest seemed to surprise them both, and Irene turned away from Sherlock, her hand at the zippered neckline of her tailored dress. “Something wrong, Doctor Watson?”

"I told you, you’re not playing this game again," John reiterated, his voice firm. He glared first at Sherlock, then Irene. "The last time you played this stupid game of yours you traumatized Mrs. Hudson. And the time before that, you scandalized the neighbors. I’m not walking in here again with you two half-naked and two questions away from a shag. Get a television for his bedroom for God’s sake, but you’re not strip-deducing trash telly in here again."


	18. The Halls of Judgment (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Hades/Persephone Mythology AU of Irene and Sherlock, inspired as always by [erenejaeger](http://erenejaeger.tumblr.com) over on Tumblr. Takes place in the same universe as [Poppy and Belladonna](http://archiveofourown.org/works/584420/chapters/1720719).

Shades passed through the halls of Hades with a grey, predictable monotony, most of them shuffling off to their judgments without protest, as mildly biddable as if they were already wandering the Fields of Asphodel. Rarely was Hades actually called to hold court, to see into the hearts and lives of the dead and render judgment. But today was one of those days, a day warm in the gardens of Persephone, the dread queen herself holding court among the pomegranate trees, the lord of the underworld with his head cradled in her lap.  
  
"Your presence is requested to sit in judgment, my lord," Thanatos intoned, the god of death's voice heavy with the weight of the sepulcher as he intruded upon his king and queen. Hades said nothing, staring up into nothing, or perhaps studying the profile of his queen against the cold light.  
  
Persephone, however, turned her attention away from Hades and reached up a slim pale hand. The pomegranate tree above obliged, bending its branches low, and her fingers wrapped around a low hanging fruit, snapping it from its branches. "Hades will be with the petitioner in a moment, Thanatos," she said, her voice like the howl of winter wind as she offered him the fruit, its skin gleaming like rubies.  
  
"The petitioner begs your presence as well, my queen," continued Thanatos, taking the fruit like some reverent jewel. "He wishes the queen of Hades' heart to hear his plea."  
  
That roused Hades, and he turned his pale face to his servant, his gaze now sharpened, ready to cut more surely than Stygian iron. "Send him to the hall."  
  
Thanatos nodded and swept away, his grey cloak flowing over the hemlock like a mist. When he had passed like a chill wind, Hades stirred again, rising from Persephone's embrace and drawing his helm to himself. "Petitioners," he scoffed, tucking his helm under his arm and offering her his hand. "This one no doubt thinks your presence will soften me to his pleas."  
  
Persephone laughed and took his hand, her fingertips light against his arm. Her lips, red as pomegranates, split into a smile as sharp as the dagger in her leather girdle. "Of course they do," she replied, her tone mocking. "Their poets insist on spinning lies, singing songs of the mighty Hades sweeping in to take his bride by force and horsewhips. How many do you think would believe I soften you if they knew that I walked beneath the earth of my own free will to tame Death himself?"  
  
His fingers slid along her hand to tighten at her wrist, pulling her to him with a cold laugh of his own. "You may have tamed Thanatos, Woman," Hades purred against her ear, heedless of the way the hilt of her dagger dug into his ribs and hers as he pressed himself against her. "But you haven't tamed _me_."  
  
She laughed again, her eyes bright with belladonna, and she arched against him teasing and deliberate before breaking his embrace with ease. "Not this winter," she agreed, her own fingers closing on his wrist as she pulled him with her towards the palace they called home. "But I managed last winter, and the winter prior. And the one before that, as my memory serves. Come, Lord Hades, we have a petitioner's fragile hopes to disabuse."  
  
*****

Hades and Persephone sat in state upon thrones of Stygian iron, his helm of darkness brooding upon his head, her crown like tarnished silver upon her brow. The petitioning shade drifted into the hall, his form shifting, flickering, pulled by the heat of the flickering candles. To the naked eye, he was insubstantial, little more than a wisp of smoke twisting in the wind, but to the Lord and Lady of the Underworld, he was bare, each though, each desire, each moment of an inconsequential life splayed out to read. Persephone took one look at him and laughed, long and low and cold as ice upon Olympus. “Oh he's a _poet_ ,” she cooed, her lips like pomegranates parting like a wolf.  
  
Hades himself hid a smile as the shade twisted his hands, turning with hope upon the lady at his side. “Mediocre writer, unremarkable scribe. Paid his respects to Apollo, but only just so to stay respectable. Boring. The Fields of Asphodel with him.” Hades' smile tugged at his grim mouth as the dead poet's eyes went wide, as his lips worked and he turned to Persephone, his arms outstretched in supplication.  
  
My lady!” cried the boring poet, “I have composed great songs to you. I have composed for the glory of the gods! Have mercy on me!”  
  
Persephone glanced over at Hades and he met her eyes, steel against steel, blood against blood. Her smile grew slowly, poisonously, and his eyes grew dark and dilated as he watched her rise, as she rose from her throne, the pale goddess in whose footsteps hemlock bloomed. The hapless poet smiled idiotically as she neared him, the very force of his relief making his incorporeal form sway in the breeze. “Mmm, poet, yes. Of mediocre talent,” Persephone said critically as she circled him. Hemlock and poppy sprouted in a ring as she walked, and he swayed, a shape of ghostly fog, trying to stay with her. “A poet who wrote lies. Wrote a song about Persephone and Hades. Dear heart, were you aware that you dragged me into your home by the hair?” She tapped one long nailed finger tipped with blood against her lips, and drew her dagger. “But that isn't all, is it? The poet who spins lies, who seduced the goatherd's daughter, and charmed the nobleman's charge. Dancing away with the young boys and leaving broken hearts behind.”  
  
The poet's misty eyes grew wide, and even in his swaying misty form, Persephone saw his throat work. She rested the tip of the knife against his throat, and despite his insubstantial form, the smoke of his being seemed to solidify where the knife point touched, where she pressed and drew a drop of silver blood. “You like pain, dear poet, don't you?” she purred. “Inflicting it without a care whether your lovers wanted pain. Taking your pleasures without a thought. Tsk tsk, dear poet.” Persephone straightened and drew back the knife, sheathing it again at her waist, the single drop of quicksilver blood clinging to its point. “No, not Asphodel for you, poet. You pleaded for my mercy, and you will know your folly.” She stepped back, and the circle of poppy and hemlock died. “The Fields of Punishment,” she pronounced, her words a thunderclap.  
  
Wind howled through Hades' halls, and swept away with it the screaming petitioner, decrying his fate, his folly in trusting to the goddess of his songs rather than the dread queen on her throne. Hades rose from his iron throne and swept down upon his goddess, his dark robes circling her like bat's wings as he pressed a kiss that tasted of brimstone and fire to her lips.  
  
Persephone laughed and threaded her fingers into his hair as she returned his fervor, feeding back brimstone with the fire of summer's heart. “I should let you sit in judgment more often,” he murmured against her skin, his hands gripping her hips. Summer's heart and death's chill entwined.  
  
“I'd have agreed with Asphodel,” she answered, her voice low with pleasure as she tasted ash and smoke on his tongue. “Except he wrote those excruciating songs.”  
  
Hades laughed and took Persephone into his arms, hissing in pain and pleasure as her nails bit into his neck, his own fingers tangling in her hair. “But the idea of dragging you off by the hair has potential.”


	19. Shades of Grey (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an anon on Tumblr who wanted "Irene and Sherlock playing deductions like Sherlock and Mycroft did in s3e1."
> 
> I am so so sorry. And at the same time 100% not sorry. Because Irene Adler + Fifty Shades of Grey references = win?

He appears in her flat as suddenly and unannounced as she appears in his. The idea of calling ahead, of making plans, was utterly foreign to either of them. Though, Irene wondered, as she always did, whether or not the good Doctor Watson who was so often scandalized by her appearance in 221B Baker Street realized Sherlock Holmes appeared in the same fashion in her home.  
  
She suspected not.  
  
"You always appear right after my client leaves," she said as she swept into her bedroom, right past where he stood at the center of it. "If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you were keeping an eye on my home, Mr. Holmes."  
  
"Your clients are boring and predictable. You’d only be able to handle them for a few hours at the most. Hardly a difficult deduction," he answered, holding up a silver silk tie, wrinkled, discarded. "Banker. Overweight, with a teenage boy and a dog at home."  
  
She kicked off her shoes with a silent breath of pleasure. She enjoyed the height and the feel of her choice in footwear, but there was a distinct pleasure in being free of them, at least for a short while. She glanced at him in the mirror of her vanity, a smirk tugging on her lips. “Investment banker,” she corrected. “Unimaginative, bland. Wife bought him the tie.”  
  
Sherlock scoffed. “Of course his wife bought the tie. Dog’s a golden retriever, suitably picturesque for family photos, inoffensive. If he had his way he’d wear blue ties every day.”  
  
Irene checked her appearance in the vanity for loose, undone curls, for smudged makeup. Nothing. The silver tie wearing client had barely needed a hand, much less a vigorous one that could undo the untouchable dominatrix persona. Pleased, Irene returned to where he remained standing, at the foot of her bed. She took the tie from his fingers, smirking when his hand tightened on it reflexively. “You’re still missing the obvious,” she informed him, twining the tie between her fingers, tugging it away from him.  
  
His brow furrowed, irritation flickering across his face as he resisted her pulling the tie from his hand. He held on tight, brought it up to his eyes to examine. The tension in the fabric grew taut as he pulled on it and she refused to let go. Her eyes danced with amusement, and he took a deep breath, frowned, and leaned in closer to her, breathing in her scent. She froze, momentarily, at the feel of his warmth against her skin, at the tickle of air against sensitive nerves.  
  
"Perfume on the tie," he said as he straightened again, a hint of triumph in his expression despite the dispassionate words. "The wife’s, obviously. She dressed him this morning. Incompetent as well as boring then."  
  
Her smirk, previously only mildly superior, grew deeply amused, and her fingers tightened on the tie, as she wrapped the length of it around her knuckles. He still refused to let go, and the motion drew her inexorably closer to him. He refused to look away, and that pride made obvious the slow dilation of his pupils. “So close, Mr. Holmes, so very close and yet so far away,” she purred, arching an eyebrow at him. “How on earth did you miss that she came with him? That her perfume is from the tie being wrapped around her wrists?”   
  
His eyes narrowed at her laughter, and his lips twisted into a familiar challenge that sent a thrill of anticipation down Irene’s spine. “Two clients. Odd, with the husband’s undiscovered pornography addiction and the wife’s flirtation with the postman,” he enunciated the words in a low growl, as if determined to prove her wrong with his deductions. “Not to mention the teenage son’s friend’s crush on the wife, he hardly seemed the dominating type.”  
  
She had to suppress a shiver, and her smile turned absolutely wolfish as she closed the little distance between them, her clients’ left-behind grey tie caught in their hands. “He isn’t,” she agreed, her own voice throaty. “She brought him, after reading some trash novel. Hoped to teach him a spine, but she’ll be back without him.”  
  
He leaned in, as if to catch every word, but she knew it was more than that. She could see his eyes, dark with the faintest ring of colour, his skin beginning to flush with heat. His lips were a hairsbreadth from hers.  
  
"Care to wager on that, Miss Adler?"


	20. In Memory of the Occasion (Sherlock - Irene/Sherlock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr, in response to "The Abominable Bride". Sherlock Holmes and the truth behind Jim Moriarty's resurrection, by one who knows death and resurrection best.

Sherlock Holmes returned to 221B Baker Street smelling of sour sweat and grave dirt. But given that he had not expected to return to Baker Street at _all_ , he supposed it was worth the bits of dirt being tracked up the landing and no doubt to be ground into the carpet. The fading high of the drugs would leave him physically shaking and ill by morning, but the intellectual high of the case, of the prospect of whoever, whatever it was that had used Moriarty’s visage… _That_ would last for days.

The moment he opened the door into 221B, however, he stopped short. The scent hit him first, sandalwood and vanilla, weaving through the flat, easily overpowering the scent of _him,_ the foul sour stench of his near overdose, the sweat and rot of Emilia Rigoletti’s grave and her corpse. No, the sandalwood and vanilla was like a blast of chill air against his senses, something that cut through his fading high like a knife. He found himself looking immediately towards his bedroom, as if she would be there again, curled up in his bed or simply waiting nude and brazen like the Woman of his mind palace, uninvited but ever-present.

But no, the door to his bedroom was wide open, and showed his bed bare, empty of the one Woman who had ever wormed her way into his inner sanctum without so much as a ‘by your leave’. He had left it closed when he’d left for (what he had presumed to be) the last time. But here it was, opened, taunting. He was three steps down the hall towards his bedroom before he stopped himself. Because a clue in his bedroom would have been too _obvious,_ which meant there had to be something _else_. He stopped midstride, blinked, and turned a slow circle around his flat.

The mantelpiece.

Of course.

Another three strides took him there, to a single piece of paper (heavyweight parchment, bought in Dresden, or possibly a duty-free shop at the airport, but the paper was definitely made _in_ Dresden) folded and left on said mantelpiece. He picked it up, savouring the textural feel of it, the weight of it, against his fingers, before he opened it.

The handwriting with familiar. Obvious. No attempt to disguise it whatsoever.

Two simple words. Echoing the message earlier, now in a familiar feminine script.

**_Miss me?_ **

Sherlock Holmes’ eyes followed each looping letter, and a small smile began to play on his lips. The answer was obvious now, the answer to the puzzle to who had resurrected the idea of Jim Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime, the concept that could not be put back into the box now that it was out. But just because the answer was obvious did not mean the puzzle was solved.

Nor, did it mean the chase would not begin.

Because that was always the best part, the thrill of the chase. And She knew it as well as he did. That boredom was deadly, but _oh_ the _chase_. That was worth every penny, every line of powder, every syringe. The small smile grew, became a sharp, predatory grin of anticipation as he folded the paper back up and put it into his pocket.

_At the same time, in his mind palace, Sherlock reached for the pocketwatch he wore, the gold watch with its sovereign fob and its hidden photo, and tucked the note into his waistcoat next to the watch_.

His smile remained as his phone chirped with a text notification, a text from an unknown number, a number that if he deigned to look (which he would not because he already knew the answer) would lead to nothing but a burner phone, anonymously purchased, easily forgotten.

“I would have waited, but you were gone so long I got bored.”

He laughed then, a single chuckle in the heart of Baker Street, in his sanctum sanctorum, in his mind palace. No, she was just teasing him now, goading him out of boredom, but it was the chase again, the case again, the mystery to strive for, the unsolved.

Oh but this will be _fun_.


End file.
